Maduro is Taking Venezuela Where Castro Tells Him

Posted on August 7, 2017August 7, 2017 by Denise Simon

The rogue countries across the globe are Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and Cuba. What is in common here is they have each other and they work their foreign policy agendas in locations that threaten the West at every turn including militarily.

Iran, China and Russia are running the influence operations in North Korea. Russia is running the influence operation in Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Syria. China and Pakistan is the enabler to North Korea. China is in Africa, Russia is in Africa, Iran is in Iraq and Afghanistan….they are all policy, money and oil opportunists….crazy right?

The Star

A video showing more than a dozen men dressed in military fatigues, some carrying rifles, began circulating widely on social media around that time. In the recording, a man who identified himself as Capt. Juan Caguaripano said the men were members of the military who oppose Maduro’s socialist government and called on military units to declare themselves in open rebellion.

“This is not a coup d’etat,” the man said. “This is a civic and military action to re-establish the constitutional order.” More from the Associated Press.

So, while Venezuela is in a full blown tailspin….who owns the chaos there via Maduro? Cuba…

2004, the agreement was signed.

To further help, the University of Miami has an archived summary here.

So, it goes like this and the burden belongs to Obama and John Kerry for the plight of Venezuelans.

Photo

The Guns of Venezuela

Castro is calling the shots in Caracas. Sanctions have to be aimed at him.

WSJ: In a video posted on the internet Sunday morning, former Venezuelan National Guard captain Juan Caguaripano, along with some 20 others, announced an uprising against the government of Nicolás Maduro to restore constitutional order. The rebels reportedly appropriated some 120 rifles, ammunition and grenades from the armory at Fort Paramacay in Valencia, the capital of Carabobo state. There were unconfirmed claims of similar raids at several other military installations including in Táchira.

The Cuba-controlled military regime put tanks in the streets and unleashed a hunt for the fleeing soldiers. It claims it put down the rebellion and it instructed all television to broadcast only news of calm. But Venezuelans were stirred by the rebels’ message. There were reports of civilians gathering in the streets to sing the national anthem in support of the uprising.

Note to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: Venezuelans want to throw off the yoke of Cuban repression. They need your help.

Unfortunately Mr. Tillerson so far seems to be taking the bad advice of his State Department “experts.”

The same bureaucrats, it should be noted, ran Barack Obama’s Latin America policy. Those years gave us a rapprochement with Havana that culminated with the 44th president doing “the wave” with Raúl Castro at a baseball game in 2016. Team Obama also pushed for Colombia’s surrender to the drug-trafficking terrorist group FARC in a so-called peace deal last year. And it supported “dialogue” last year to restore free, fair and transparent elections in Venezuela. The result, in every case, was disaster.

Any U.S.-led international strategy to liberate Venezuela must begin with the explicit recognition that Cuba is calling the shots in Caracas, and that Havana’s control of the oil nation is part of its wider regional strategy.

Slapping Mr. Maduro’s wrist with sanctions, as the Trump administration did last week, won’t change Castro’s behavior. He cares only about his cut-rate Venezuelan oil and his take of profits from drug trafficking. To affect things in Venezuela, the U.S. has to press Cuba.

Burning Cuban flags, when they can be had, is now practically a national pastime in Venezuela because Venezuelans understand the link between their suffering and Havana. The Castro infiltration began over a decade ago when Fidel sent thousands of Cuban agents, designated as teachers and medical personnel, to spread propaganda and establish communist cells in the barrios.

As I noted in this column last week, since 2005 Cuba has controlled Venezuela’s citizen-identification and passport offices, keeping files on every “enemy” of the state—a k a political opponents. The Venezuelan military and National Guard answer to Cuban generals. The Venezuelan armed forces are part of a giant drug-trafficking operation working with the FARC, which is the hemisphere’s largest cartel and also has longstanding ties to Cuba.

These are the tactical realities of the Cuba-Venezuela-Colombia nexus. The broader strategic threat to U.S. interests, including Cuba’s cozy relationship with Middle East terrorists, cannot be ignored.

Elisabeth Burgos is the Venezuelan ex-wife of the French Marxist Regis Debray. She was born in Valencia, joined the Castro cause as a young woman, and worked for its ideals on the South American continent.

Ms. Burgos eventually broke free of the intellectual bonds of communism and has lived in Paris for many years. In a recent telephone interview—posted on the Venezuelan website Prodavinci—she warned of the risks of the “Cuban project” for the region. “Wherever the Cubans have been, everything ends in tragedy,” she told Venezuelan journalist Hugo Prieto. “Surely we have no idea what forces we face,” Mr. Prieto observed—reflecting as a Venezuelan on the words of Ms. Burgos—because, as she said, there is “a lot of naiveté, a lot of ignorance, about the apparatus that has fallen on [Venezuelans]: Castroism.”

Cuban control of citizens is as important as control of the military. In Cuba this is the job of the Interior Ministry. For that level of control in Venezuela, Ms. Burgos said, Mr. Maduro must rely on an “elite of exceptional experts” Castro grooms at home.

Cuba, Ms. Burgos said, is not “simply a dictatorship.” For the regime it is a “historical political project” aiming for “the establishment of a Cuban-type regime throughout Latin America.” She noted that along with Venezuela the Cubans have taken Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, and are now going after Colombia. “The FARC, turned into a political party and with all the money of [the narcotics business], in an election can buy all the votes that it wants.”

Mr. Tillerson is forewarned. Castro won’t stop until someone stops him. To get results, any U.S.-led sanctions have to hit the resources that Havana relies on to maintain the repression.

Chicago Mayor Sues DoJ/Sessions, Sanctuary City Money

Posted on August 7, 2017August 7, 2017 by Denise Simon

Primer:

Jamie Gorelick — a partner at Wilmer Hale who also represents Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner on non-Russia related legal issues, is one of the many attorneys who is listed as pro bono counsel on the suit. Last year Chicago received $2.3 million in JAG funds. Over the years, the city has purchased SWAT equipment, police vehicles, radios and Tasers with the money.

The suit revolves around specific conditions Sessions announced in July for a federal program, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, or Bryne JAG, which provides federal funding to support local law enforcement efforts.

“(The executive branch) may not unilaterally concoct and import into the Byrne JAG program sweeping new policy conditions that were never approved (and indeed were considered and rejected) by Congress and that would federalize local jails and police stations, mandate warrantless detentions in order to investigate for federal civil infractions, sow fear in local immigrant communities, and ultimately make the people of Chicago less safe,” attorneys for the city wrote in Monday’s filing. More here.

Inquisitr

‘Sanctuary city’ Chicago sues Trump administration

Chicago (AFP) – The city of Chicago filed suit Monday against the Donald Trump administration for withholding funds from so-called “sanctuary cities” that fail to cooperate with tougher federal efforts cracking down on undocumented immigrants.

The lawsuit, the first of its kind, challenges the Trump administration’s requirement that cities detain suspects for questioning by federal immigration authorities or see their grant funding for municipal police departments withheld.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday called the policy counterproductive.

“By forcing us, or the police department, to choose between the values of the city and the philosophy of the police department… I think it’s a false choice, and it undermines our actual safety agenda,” Emanuel told CNN.

“We will always be a welcoming city,” he continued, adding that local police departments rely on the cooperation of the immigrant community — both documented and undocumented.

“Our police department is part of a neighborhood, part of a community, built on the premise of trust,” the mayor said.

“We want you to come to Chicago if you believe in the American dream,” he added.

The federal grant at the center of the lawsuit provided $2.3 million to Chicago last year to purchase police equipment, such as cars, computers, radios and Tasers, Emanuel said.

The federal government’s new rules would tie the grant to requirements that, among other things, cities give federal immigration authorities unlimited access to local police stations to interrogate arrestees, Chicago officials said.

The city is asking a federal court to declare such requirements unlawful.

Trump has targeted sanctuary cities as part of his promised crackdown on illegal immigration, and the Department of Justice implemented the new funding requirement last month.

Supporters of “sanctuary city” policies say requiring local police to fully cooperate with immigration enforcement erodes with the communities they serve and frustrate law enforcement efforts.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) criticized the lawsuit in a statement that accused Emanuel of “protecting criminal aliens and putting Chicago’s law enforcement at greater risk.”

The head of the DOJ, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, last week said the policy would improve safety for immigration officers who now have to track down suspects who already had been detained and released by local police.

“By forcing police to go into more dangerous situations to re-arrest the same criminals, these policies endanger law enforcement officers more than anyone,” Sessions said.

Pentagon Recommends Suspension of MAVNI, Foreign Infiltration

Posted on August 1, 2017August 1, 2017 by Denise Simon

It does not take but just a few to go AWOL or to flee the program to create a domestic national security disaster. Further, was the original vetting and background procedure watered down in recent years such that the vulnerability to this growing security risk manifested?

What the heck is really going on here? Remember in October of 2016 when Reuters reported this?

Forty-four Afghan troops visiting the United States for military training have gone missing in less than two years, presumably in an effort to live and work illegally in America, Pentagon officials said.

Although the number of disappearances is relatively small — some 2,200 Afghan troops have received military training in the United States since 2007 — the incidents raise questions about security and screening procedures for the programs.

There was yet another very similiar AWOL event in 2010 in Texas. 17 involved there.

The MAVNI program was limited to 5,200 people in Fiscal Year 2016. The fact sheet is here.

FNC/EXCLUSIVE: Defense Department investigators have discovered “potential security risks” in a Pentagon program that has enrolled more than 10,000 foreign-born individuals into the U.S. armed forces since 2009, Fox News has learned exclusively, with sources on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon expressing alarm over “foreign infiltration” and enrollees now unaccounted for.

After more than a year of investigation, the Pentagon’s inspector general recently issued a report – its contents still classified but its existence disclosed here for the first time – identifying serious problems with Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), a DOD program that provides immigrants and non-immigrant aliens with an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for military service.

Defense Department officials said the program is still active but acknowledged that new applications have been suspended.

Created in the final weeks of the Bush-Cheney administration and launched under then-President Barack Obama, MAVNI was designed to recruit individuals with foreign-language and other skills the Pentagon deems useful and in short supply. The program has had many success stories – most notably the Army’s Soldier of the Year in 2012, Sgt. Saral Shrestha, originally of Nepal – and independent analyses have found MAVNI recruits out-perform non-MAVNI soldiers in critical areas.

Yet concern over management of the program has grown over recent months.

“The lack of discipline in implementation of this program has created problems elsewhere,” said Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., a retired Army officer who sits on the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel. It was Russell who first publicly sounded alarms. During the markup of the latest defense authorization bill, on June 28, Russell noted: “The program has been replete with problems, to include foreign infiltration – so much so that the Department of Defense is seeking to suspend the program due to those concerns.”

Another lawmaker, whose committee does not enjoy jurisdiction over MAVNI – but whose panel could well come to focus on these problems, depending on their severity – told Fox News that the program had been “compromised” and that DOD officials have not presented answers to his questions about missing enrollees: “Where are they? What do they know? Where are they serving? What are their numbers?”

Contacted by Fox News, Army Lt. Col. Paul Haverstick, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement: “The Department of Defense is conducting a review of the MAVNI pilot program due to potential security risks associated with the program.” Beyond that, however, Haverstick declined to comment, citing “pending litigation.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis, whom sources said had developed his own concerns about MAVNI, was named as the sole defendant in a lawsuit filed in February by seven foreign-born MAVNI enrollees. The lawsuit alleged that a decision by top brass in September to tighten up access to security clearances issued through MAVNI had had the effect of “crippling their military careers.”

Sources said MAVNI’s problems included a vetting backlog that led to enrollment of many soldiers prior to completion of their background checks, and an attendant “drift” in the program’s criteria, with MAVNI being used as a vehicle for the hiring of workers – like cooks, drivers and mechanics – who did not possess the specialized skills the program was created to exploit.

The title of the inspector general’s classified report – “Evaluation of Military Services’ Compliance with Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest Program Security Reviews and Monitoring Programs” – hints at the problems, with its references to “security reviews” and “monitoring” of enrolled individuals.

Some lawmakers have received classified briefings on the matter. Sources said some of the countries of origin for MAVNI enrollees are “of concern,” but as of yet there is no evidence in the public domain that ISIS, Al Qaeda, or any other terrorist groups have penetrated the MAVNI program. Still, such a development remains an active concern.

“ISIS has always had desire to use migration as way to penetrate into countries,” said retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, a Fox News military analyst. “They have done that successfully in Europe because of open borders, mass immigration with no vetting. In the U.S., we haven’t had any record of their penetration. And certainly if this program is compromised and there’s a possibility of that kind of penetration, it’s got to be thoroughly investigated.”

Blame Obama and Brennan for Venezuela, Maduro

Posted on July 29, 2017July 29, 2017 by Denise Simon

Some facts on Venezuela under Chavez and now Maduro. When it comes to blame on why the country is in a tailspin and on the way to be a failed state where people are suffering beyond measure, rogue foreign leaders flock together and Obama/Brennan knew this was coming.

VIR

Venezuela is part of SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. SWIFT knows precisely all the global transactions into and out of Venezuela including the country’s dealings with Syria, Iran, and Russia.

Venezuela has received at least $36 billion in loans from China that have helped finance two economic development funds focused largely on infrastructure projects. Five people in raids that we carried out in Caracas linked to the embezzlement of $84 million from the Chinese Fund and Bandes. Maduro pledged to stop the corruption. Right huh? What about $300 billion?

Oops, there is more: How about the loan for oil program?

Under Chavez, several global oil deals were signed that included India, China and Russia. Under Maduro, the production has failed to meet contractual agreements. Caracas needs the oil to pay debts to China and Russia, key political allies that have together lent Venezuela at least $50 billion in exchange for promised crude and fuel deliveries.

According to Reuters, former ministers Héctor Navarro and Jorge Giordani are accusing government workers of pocketing more than $300 billion in crude oil revenue over the past decade. They are demanding the government account for these funds and investigate into whose hands they went. Navarro has personally requested that “a state ethics council review the operations of the 13-year-old exchange control mechanism that opposition leaders have described as a ‘corruption machine.’”

Another former Chávez minister, Ana Elisa Osorio, petitioned the Republican National Council, a government watchdog group, to investigate the case. “In the last two years, we have found missing $20 billion from the Republic’s funds. This is why we resort here to calling for a meeting of regulators, the treasury, and the national attorney’s office,” Osorio said. More here.

Oh yeah, we cant leave out Goldman Sachs. In 2016, Goldman Sachs confirmed its asset management arm had bought $2.8 billion of another bond issued by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA at a steep discount.

SantiagoTimes

So on to some other facts that rogue leaders overlook, including the United States when it comes to heading off the tailspin and eventual failure of a state resulting in disgusting human rights violations.

2011: Iran began building intermediate-range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February. Amir al-Hadschisadeh, the head of the Guard’s Air Force, approved the visit, according to the report. Die Welt cited information from “Western security insiders.”

In 2015: Drug smuggling is thought to be on the rise in Venezuela, with many public officials complicit. According to the BBC, the US has already sanctioned at least 50 whom it accuses of human rights abuses and drug trafficking.

Pressure on the drug trade in neighbouring Colombia appears to have forced many narco-traffickers over the border. While Venezuela does not grow the coca plant or manufacture cocaine, estimates in the US State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports suggest that between 161 and 212 metric tons of cocaine are shipped from the country each year, although data is scarce.

In its most recent such report, published in March 2015, the US State Department reported that “public corruption is a major problem in Venezuela that makes it easier for drug-trafficking organizations to move and smuggle illegal drugs”. More here.

IBTimes

2017: Maduro named Tareck El Aissami as the Vice President.

That means that, in a country of complete and utter chaos — where people are starving, healthcare is nonexistent, electricity is scarce, and vigilante justice is becoming a norm — a suspected terrorist is one heartbeat away from the highest office in the land.

El Aissami is a known entity in the world of US intelligence. He is allegedly a part of Venezuela’s state drug-trafficking network and has ties to Iran, Syria, and Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Joseph Humire, coauthor of “Iran’s Strategic Penetration in Latin America” and founder of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS) think tank, testified to the same effect before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last year.

“Over the years, El Aissami developed a sophisticated, multi-layered financial network that functions as a criminal-terrorist pipeline bringing militant Islamists into Venezuela and surrounding countries, and sending illicit funds and drugs from Latin America to the Middle East.

“His financial network consists of close to 40 front companies that own over 20 properties with cash, vehicles, real estate and other assets sitting in 36 bank accounts spread throughout Venezuela, Panama, Curacao, St. Lucia, Southern Florida and Lebanon. This network became integrated with the larger Ayman Joumaa moneylaundering network that used the Lebanese Canadian Bank to launder hundreds of million of dollars and move multi-ton shipments of cocaine on behalf of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels as well as Hezbollah.

“This immigration scheme is suspected to also be in place in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as well as some Caribbean countries.”

In 2016: A jury in New York found two relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro guilty on Friday of attempting to import 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, both nephews of Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores, were arrested in November 2015 in Haiti in an investigation that saw Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informants pose as Mexican traffickers and meet with the nephews. More here.

Further on that case during trial it was revealed that Flores and Campo are the nephews of Cilia Flores, the wife of President Maduro and a politician in her own right. According to trial testimony, they were planning to move cocaine for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) through Venezuela via the president’s private hangar at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas.

They expected the deal to bring them as much as $11 million, some of which was to be used to help fund Cilia Flores’ re-election campaign.

Qatar Hires DC Lobby Part of the Swamp

Posted on July 27, 2017July 27, 2017 by Denise Simon

At least there is a FARA filing.

Qatar is a hub for harboring terrorists and funding terror organizations. Recently, Gulf States with Saudi Arabia in the lead have isolated Qatar for these exact reasons.

Yesterday, this site published an article about the historical details of Qatar’s relationship with manifesting global terror.

Avenue Strategies was founded by former Trump campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski. The first clients were Citgo and Puerto Rico were among their first clients. He has since left the company, but the placeholder remaining are opportunists that apparently are dismissing the terror facts for money in their own pockets. Citgo is headquartered in Houston, Texas, but is “owned by the leftist government of Venezuela.” Citgo took out a loan from Russian state-owned oil giant, Rosneft in December 2016 that it has been unable to pay. It is under threat of a takeover by Rosneft.

(Not all the items in the dossier were false)

At Avenue Strategies, there are names like Barry Bennett who previously worked for Ben Carson and Rick Perry. Then there is George Birnbaum who worked for Alfonse D’Amato, Charlie Crist and top leaders in Israel. Add in Ed Brookover, who worked for Ben Carson, John Boehner and Michelle Bachmann as well as leaders from various foreign countries. Bud Cummins is the last strategist who worked for Mike Huckabee’s campaign.

As you continue reading, remember, Qatar has a nasty historical connection to terror and has no plan to prosecute terrorists or to stop funding them including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, much less the Taliban. Testimony on the Hill regarding Qatar was hosted on July 27, 2017 and much of that testimony summary is found here.

Additionally, there is pressure and discussions underway where the possibility of moving the U.S. base in Qatar is ongoing.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Qatar has hired a Washington influence firm founded by President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and another specialized in digging up dirt on U.S. politicians, signaling it wants to challenge Saudi Arabia’s massive lobbying efforts in America’s capital amid a diplomatic dispute among Arab nations.

The Gulf rift already has seen slogan-plastered taxicabs in London, television attack ads in the U.S. and competing messages flooding the internet and state-linked media on both sides since the crisis began June 5.

Hiring a firm associated with former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski shows Qatar wants access to a White House with close ties to Saudi Arabia.

But matching Saudi Arabia, which scored a diplomatic coup by hosting Trump’s first overseas trip, could be a tough battle for Qatar even if it does boast the world’s highest per-capita income due to its natural gas deposits.

“The Qataris are belatedly working up to the scale of the challenge they face,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University who lives in Seattle. “This whole crisis, now that it’s kind of settled down into a prolonged confrontation or standoff, it’s become almost a struggle to win the hearts and minds in D.C.”

Qatar, in the midst of building stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, isn’t afraid to spend its money. Since the crisis began, Qatar paid $2.5 million to the law firm of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to audit its efforts at stopping terrorism funding, among the allegations levied by the Saudi-led nations.

According to documents newly filed to the U.S. Justice Department, Qatar has hired Avenue Strategies Global for $150,000 a month to “provide research, government relations and strategic consulting services.” The contract also says that activity “may include communications with members of Congress and Congressional staff, executive branch officials, the media and other individuals.”

Lewandowski founded Avenue Strategies just after the November election that put Trump in the White House. Lewandowski resigned from the firm in May, saying he was troubled by a firm-related project he hadn’t sanctioned. Others tied to Avenue Strategies had started a firm of their own, pitching Eastern European clients with promises of access to Trump and high-ranking White House officials.

The firm, which includes a former chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Qatar also signed a three-month, $1.1 million renewable contract with the opposition research firm Information Management Services, according to a Justice Department filing .

The firm, run by Jeff Klueter, a former researcher for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, did not respond to requests for comment. It advertises itself as doing so-called “oppo,” which includes digging into political opponents’ past and comments for incriminating or simply embarrassing material.

Qatar did not respond to a request for comment about the lobbying contracts. But it may serve as recognition that while Qatar has had success in speaking with the State Department and the Pentagon, it needs to make inroads to the Trump White House, Ulrichsen said.

Despite hosting a major U.S. military base, Qatar has been a target of Trump over its alleged funding of extremists, something Doha denies. Saudi Arabia enjoys close relations to Trump, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

In Washington, Saudi Arabia spends millions of dollars on lobbying, including a most-recent push to oppose a law allowing Sept. 11 victims’ families to sue the ultraconservative Muslim nation in U.S. courts . Its lobbying firms have been putting out memos on Qatar.

Meanwhile, an organization called the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee launched an online campaign called the Qatar Insider highlighting material critical of Doha. The committee also paid $138,000 to air an anti-Qatar attack ad on a local Washington television station, according to the Qatar-funded satellite news network Al-Jazeera.

“Our aim is to show the American people that Qatar has been employing a foreign policy that harms its neighbors and contributes to regional instability,” said Reem Daffa, the executive director of the committee, known by the acronym SAPRAC.

But while Daffa said SAPRAC does no lobbying, it has registered as a lobbying firm with Congress and tweeted a Qatar attack ad at Trump . It also has not filed paperwork with the Justice Department despite the committee being listed as entirely owned by a Saudi national .

The Foreign Agents Registration Act, first put in place over concerns about Nazi propagandists operating in the U.S. ahead of World War II, requires those working on behalf of other countries or their citizens to file regular reports to the Justice Department.

There aren’t similar rules in Britain, though the crisis recently could be seen on the streets of London. Pro-Qatar ads appeared on the city’s famous black taxis, bearing the message: “Lift the Blockade Against the People of Qatar.” Al-Jazeera Arabic even did a story about them.

But whether any of it will sway policy makers remains unclear.

“The prevailing view is that there are no perfect allies,” recently wrote Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. “So whatever money the Gulf countries are spending in Washington, they should know it is not very well spent.”